Chagrin over Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn

Representatives of two of Seattle’s most prominent business groups have publicly stood up to Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and his maneuvers to stop the proposed waterfront tunnel.

For months, the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Seattle Association largely picked their plays from the Seattle Nice playbook, in which interest groups say little publicly while cajoling and complaining in private.

Until now, apparently.

The two business groups stepped up to the bully pulpit to voice their frustration over McGinn’s increasingly transparent stop-the-tunnel policies.

Tayloe Washburn, a Seattle Chamber director, and Robert Sexton, a DSA director, on April 22 published an op-ed piece in the Puget Sound Business Journal that takes McGinn to task over the tunnel.

Among other things, Washburn and Sexton accuse McGinn of promoting an anti-tunnel referendum in a “cynical attempt to stop the tunnel project and create a situation where the surface option becomes the default project.” This, despite years of civic consensus building around the proposed tunnel.

Mr. Mayor, it’s time to quit stalling on the tunnel

It’s hard to believe that it has been more than 10 years since the Nisqually Earthquake damaged the Alaskan Way Viaduct. What’s harder to believe is that Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn — who pledged before he was elected to not stand in the way of the bored tunnel project — is creating more delay by pursuing a referendum on the tunnel. The City Attorney believes the measure is illegal and filed a lawsuit to stop it from appearing on the ballot. No one should be fooled by the mayor’s referendum. It isn’t a sincere attempt to gain input from the public on their preferred replacement for the Alaskan Way Viaduct. It’s a cynical attempt to stop the tunnel project and create a situation where the surface option becomes the default project.

Over the past 10 years, we’ve witnessed just about every form of public process one could imagine when it comes to the viaduct: from stakeholder committees to public votes to more than 700 public meetings and 17,000 public comments.

In 2008, we served with 27 other citizens from the Seattle area on the Alaskan Way Viaduct Stakeholder Advisory Committee, which met for a year to review more than a dozen options for replacing the viaduct. After extensive debate and discussion, a majority of the committee supported the bored tunnel alternative because it maintains mobility for people and goods, keeps the viaduct open during construction — minimizing impacts to businesses — and connects downtown Seattle to the waterfront. We recognized that we only have two north/south corridors through Seattle, and eliminating one of them wasn’t a responsible or feasible option if we hoped to maintain a strong economy and quality of life.

As we all know by now, the mayor prefers a surface street option, which was soundly rejected by the committee in 2008. The current referendum is just another means to this gridlocked end for the mayor.

The stakeholder committee didn’t simply study one surface street alternative, but looked at three different versions. The committee found that each one would result in an unacceptable level of gridlock on Seattle streets and on Interstate 5.

The viaduct carries approximately 110,000 vehicles every day. Now close your eyes for a moment and picture your commute on a rainy Friday evening if the mayor got his way and 110,000 additional cars and trucks were forced onto I-5 and city streets. Whether you commute by bus, bike, car or even foot, we’d all feel the impacts of this gridlock and so too would our economy, neighborhood business districts and major arts, cultural and sports attractions downtown. Seattle residents would be burdened with more traffic under this option and also more costs. The state has appropriated $2.4 billion for the bored tunnel project, but hasn’t approved a single penny for the mayor’s surface street proposal, meaning Seattle taxpayers would be on the hook for all of the costs.

In a recent letter to the mayor, 19 stakeholders reaffirmed their support for moving forward with the bored tunnel and soundly rejected the surface option as an unacceptable and unfunded recipe for more gridlock on city streets and I-5.

Leaders from Seattle community groups, business, labor, neighborhoods, industry and tourism recognize these facts. That’s why they have come together to form a new campaign — Let’s Move Forward — to urge that we put the hemming and hawing to rest, and move forward with the bored tunnel project. You can add your name to the list of supporters and join the campaign by going to www.LetsMoveForward.org.

We know a sincere and genuine public process when we see one. We spent over a year as part of such an effort and with a majority of our fellow stakeholders came to the conclusion that the bored tunnel project is the best option for replacing the viaduct and that the surface street option was a fiscally and economically irresponsible choice. After years of debate and millions of dollars already spent, it’s time to move forward.

TAYLOE WASHBURN serves on the board of directors of the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce. ROBERT SEXTON serves on the board of trustees of the Downtown Seattle Association.